Captain Britain and MI13 - Volume 3: Vampire State [Paperback]

Paul Cornell (Author), Mike Collins (Author), Leonard Kirk (Illustrator)

Book Description

Series: Captain Britain and MI13 | Publication Date: September 23, 2009

The king of the vampires is back! As if the hoards of demons that Pete Wisdom let out in order to defeat the Skrulls in England weren't enough, now DRACULA has entered the scene. What does he want with Spitfire? And how will an election help his cause? You better hope that Captain Britain and the rest of MI13 have a way to defeat him! Collects Captain Britain and MI13 #10-15.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Marvel (September 23, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785139524
• ISBN-13: 978-0785139522
• Product Dimensions: 1 x 1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #833,510 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Initially training to be a lawyer, Mike had always wanted to tell stories in pictures. Driven by a love of comics and animation he abandoned the life of a bewigged barrister and instead has spent the last 25 years writing and drawing adventures featuring the most iconic heroes in the US, UK and Europe.

For Marvel Comics he's drawn the X-Men, Sub-Mariner and most recently contributed to a Hugo nominated Captain Britain Graphic Novel 'Vampire State'. He's drawn Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Flash amongst others, for DC Comics. For both companies, he's written and drawn graphic stories featuring the many incarnations of Star Trek. In the UK he's been the main artist on the relaunched Doctor Who franchise, recently drawing the first BBC commissioned graphic novel Only Good Dalek, working with long time Doctor Who novelist Justin Richards.

For Norway, he's the artist on the Varg Veum series of graphic novels, written by the character's creator Gunnar Staalesen.

He's also author of the first Welsh language graphic novel Y Mabinogi, itself an adaptation of an animated feature based on the Welsh myth cycle. Outside of comics, he's also written for the Star Trek book series - 'Starfleet Corps of Engineers'.

Based in Cardiff, Wales his studio is a stone's throw away from The Rift featured in the Torchwood TV series. Often, after a day spent drawing the comic book adventures of Doctor Who he finds himself walking through the filming of the actual show.

As a storyboard artist, Mike has worked on many pre-school shows, Bobinogs; Claude; Cym Teg; Fireman Sam; Grandpa In My Pocket; Hana's Helpline; Igam Ogam and more. He storyboarded the BAFTA nominated short Day On The Beach, and recently worked on storyboards for the Ultramarines CGI movie.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars England Alone..., October 21, 2009

By 

Sean Curley (Charlottetown, PE, Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Captain Britain and MI13 - Volume 3: Vampire State (Paperback)

With this third volume, Paul Cornell's "Captain Britain and MI13" unfortunately comes to an end. Forewarned, Paul Cornell and his principal artist, Leonard Kirk, have indeed devised a suitable finale for the series, which in a span of 15 issues (an an annual) became one of my favourite properties recently published. This trade paperback collects issues 10-15 of the ongoing series, as well as the Annual tying into the story. Some spoilers follow, so take care.

The first two arcs of the series, "The Guns of Avalon" and "Hell Comes To Birmingham", while functioning as standalone stories, are also prologues to this climactic arc: due to a number of subplots and plot elements set up in previous stories (one fairly late-stage development makes little sense unless you've read "Hell Comes To Birmingham"). As revealed on the closing pages of the previous volume, the villain of this arc is none other than Dracula, the arch-villain of the famous 1970s Marvel series "Tomb of Dracula" (and, obviously, one of the most iconic figures in western literature). He is now planning an invasion of the United Kingdom, with an army of vampires at his command, and MI13 in his sights. Among his allies is the resurrected Baron Blood, son of MI13 member Spitfire.

Given how pervasive Dracula is in global pop culture, if one is planning to use him in a new story it really helps to have a reasonably unique take on him. While not completely new (there is precedent in, among other things, "Tomb of Dracula" itself, though that's been out of publication for decades), Cornell's version of Dracula, a brilliant strategist and general with a large army at his command, is quite different from most depictions, where he might have a handful of helpers and specialize in abducting individuals to feed on. The project at hand, the creation of a vampire homeland where he can rule and his people can be `free', is an ambition worthy of such a characterization (it also has a certain credible limitedness to it, unlike some of the more generic "take over the world" schemes).

Among the main cast, this arc represents the moment of truth for a number of characters: for Spitfire, for whom this story has
been in the works for a while, a trial of endurance; for Faiza Hussain, who finally gets a costume and a codename in this story and must live up to the responsibility of wielding Excalibur; and for Pete Wisdom, who will find his skills as a strategist tested to the full. The rest of the cast, such as Captain Britain and Blade, also have plenty to do (Back Knight probably gets shafted a bit, after an opening scene where he recovers his sword at last).

It's a shame that the series couldn't have lasted longer, but this is a superb climax.